Biological parameters of the egg parasitoid Ooencyrtus gonoceri

Ooencyrtus gonoceri Viggiani (Hymenoptera Encyrtidae) is a poorly known egg parasitoid species with an apparently rare occurrencein the Mediterranean basin. It was originally identified in southern Italy emerging from Gonocerus acuteangulatus (Goeze)eggs and successively recorded also from Spain. Recently O. gonoceri emerged from sentinel egg batches of Halyomorpha halys(Stal) (Hemiptera Pentatomidae) in central Italy. Due to the scanty data on this species, biological and demographic parameters ofO. gonoceri were investigated under laboratory conditions on the alternative host Graphosoma italicum italicum (Muller) (HemipteraPentatomidae). Estimated fecundity was over 200 eggs/female and the mean progeny production per female was high (173.76specimens). At the standard rearing condition (26 °C) the development time of both sexes was similar and adults emerged after twoweeks. Moreover O. gonoceri females lived much longer than males and the host feeding behaviour resulted irrelevant for theparasitoid longevity. The main biological parameters of O. gonoceri were similar to those reported for other cogeneric species.However, this species appeared to be a very effective egg parasitoid if compared with Ooencyrtus telenomicida (Vassiliev) rearedon the same host.